WWHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM—
The sound came from below.
Not from the towering creature braced in the street.
Not from the dust-choked air or the collapsing buildings.
From the hole.
From the place where the store used to be.
Rian felt it before he understood it—the vibration crawling up through the soles of his shoes, through the bones of his legs, into his chest. The ground beneath him thrummed, not shaking, not breaking, but resonating, like the street itself had become part of something hollow and alive.
The roar rolled again, longer this time, stretching unnaturally as it rose.
WWWHHHOOOOOO—OOOOM—
Air rushed inward.
Loose debris didn't fall—it slid. Pebbles, glass shards, scraps of paper skittered toward the pit, slowing near the edge before slipping sideways and vanishing into the darkness. Dust hung in the air, bending as if caught in a current no one could see.
Rian's eyes locked onto the opening.
That was…
That was where the counter had been.
Where the register used to sit. Where he'd leaned during late shifts, elbow aching, counting minutes until close. The back room should've been three steps past that. The freezer to the left. The scuffed tile that
never quite came clean.
There was no depth now.
Just absence.
A hole cut into the street like reality had been scooped out with a blade, its edges smooth in a way broken things were never smooth. Light dimmed near the rim, not swallowed—refused.
The roar echoed again.
Shorter.
Closer.
The towering creature reacted.
Barely.
One claw tightened against the asphalt. Its weight shifted a fraction, enough to deepen the cracks beneath its feet. The ridges along its spine flexed once, slow and controlled—then stilled again.
No aggression.
No urgency.
Not the response Rian expected.
It didn't turn fully toward the hole. Didn't brace. Didn't roar back. It simply acknowledged the sound, the way something ancient might register a familiar presence without concern.
That unsettled Rian more than panic would have.
The boy noticed too.
He straightened, eyes narrowing as he looked past the creature and down into the pit. Whatever confidence he'd been wearing earlier thinned—not gone, but sharpened into something more cautious.
"…Another one?" he said quietly.
The roar came again, vibrating through the street like a pressure wave under skin.
WWHHOOOO—MMMM—
The boy exhaled through his nose, half a laugh that didn't reach his eyes.
"Yeah. That tracks," he muttered. "That definitely tracks."
He shifted his stance, rolling his shoulders, but this time there was no casual bounce. His gaze stayed locked on the hole, jaw tight.
"Two giants in one place," he added under his breath. "You know that's not normal, right?"
The air around the pit thickened further.
Rian felt it pressing against his chest now, making every breath feel slightly delayed—like the world was hesitating before allowing oxygen back in. The pressure wasn't violent, but it was wrong, stacking layer upon layer until his instincts started screaming again.
Too much.
Something about this place was overloaded.
The boy frowned, eyes flicking briefly to the towering creature beside him, then back to the hole.
"…Pressure's way too high," he said. Not guessing. Measuring. "This isn't coincidence."
Below them, the darkness shifted.
Not rising.
Not emerging.
Just moving—slow, deliberate, as if something enormous was turning around in a space that wasn't meant to fit it.
And for the first time since it arrived—
The towering creature angled its head slightly toward the pit.
Just enough to watch.
Below the street—
Something answered.
Not a roar this time.
A sound like tension being drawn tight.
KRRR—KRRK—KRRRR—
The darkness inside the hole shifted, and the air above it warped. Not bending like heat. Not rippling like water. It folded inward, threads of distortion pulling toward a single point as if space itself were being tugged and stitched.
Then—
A shape pressed against the edge of the opening.
Not a limb.
Not yet.
Thin lines appeared along the rim of the pit, carving themselves into the concrete from the inside out. They weren't cracks. They were cuts—precise, branching, spreading outward in geometric patterns that made Rian's eyes hurt to follow.
The street screeched.
Metal screamed as a sewer grate warped, folding like soft tin before snapping loose and vanishing downward. A lamppost bent toward the hole, its base whining in protest.
From the darkness—
Something scraped.
A dry, deliberate sound. Like bone dragged slowly across stone.
Rian's stomach dropped.
The thing finished emerging.
Fully.
Rian finally saw it all at once—and wished he hadn't.
Its body stretched longer than the street was wide, a segmented construct of overlapping plates that looked grown and engineered at the same time. Each segment was slightly offset from the next, allowing it to bend and coil with unsettling precision. The surface wasn't flesh. It wasn't metal either. It looked like compressed bone layered with something denser beneath, matte and dark, swallowing light except where the glow broke through.
The glow ran along it in lines.
Not random.
Thin violet seams traced the borders of every plate, converging into brighter nodes where joints met. Along its back rose a continuous ridge of spines—dozens of them—each one angled differently, like a crown of jagged shards frozen mid-bloom. The spines pulsed in sequence, light flowing from one to the next in a slow traveling pattern, as if information—not energy—was being passed along its body.
Its front tapered into a blunt, armored head with no face. No eyes. No mouth. Just a curved carapace split by glowing fissures that faintly shifted, opening and closing like vents adjusting pressure. From beneath that armor, two massive scythe-like mandibles curved forward, edges outlined in violet, humming softly as if vibrating at a frequency Rian could feel in his teeth.
Limbs unfolded beneath it—multiple, jointed, ending in hooked points that never quite touched the ground at the same time. It didn't stand.
It anchored.
Spines lowered. Hooks set. Plates flexed.
The street groaned as hairline fractures raced outward from each point of contact, concrete whining under stresses it was never meant to endure. Every movement was economical. Minimal. Nothing wasted.
This wasn't a brute.
It was a mechanism.
Rian's chest tightened.
"This isn't—" His voice failed him. "This isn't another one like—"
He couldn't finish.
The towering creature in the street reacted at last.
Not with aggression.
Not with challenge.
Its massive frame shifted just enough to acknowledge the newcomer. Claws lifted, then settled again. Its posture angled—granting space, not yielding it. The air between the two felt heavier, denser, like overlapping pressure fields had found equilibrium.
The boy noticed too.
His expression tightened, the casual edge gone.
"…Another one," he muttered, eyes tracking the glowing seams, the traveling pulses along the spines. "And this one's not built for smashing."
The segmented creature lifted its head slightly.
The violet lines along its body brightened in response, spines humming as the air around it folded inward by degrees. Dust rose—not upward, but sideways—drawn into invisible lines of tension forming around its frame.
Rian felt it then.
Not fear.
Calculation.
Whatever this thing was—
It wasn't here to charge.
It wasn't here to roar.
It had finished assembling.
And now—
It was measuring everything.
That realization landed heavier than fear.
Its focus passed over him entirely, sliding across the ruined street, the shattered buildings, the towering shape ahead—and then narrowing. Distances aligned. Masses compared. Motion potential weighed.
Targets ranked.
Rian felt small in a way he hadn't before. Not insignificant—irrelevant.
The pressure in the air changed again, tightening like a held breath. The violet lines pulsed once, brighter, and the spines along its body adjusted by fractions, angling as if responding to data only it could perceive.
Somewhere behind Rian, rubble shifted.
A scrape of concrete.
A sudden, sharp metallic groan.
He turned just in time to see the boy move.
Not stepping forward.
Not charging.
Reaching.
The street screamed as something tore free—
—and the world lurched toward impact.
The boy didn't hesitate.
His hand closed around the frame of a nearby car, metal shrieking as the chassis twisted under his grip. Tires lifted. Suspension snapped. In one brutal motion, he wrenched it free from the street—
—and threw.
The car didn't arc.
It vanished.
Air detonated as it crossed the distance, a howling compression wave chasing its shadow. Rian barely registered the blur before his ears rang.
The tall creature reacted before Rian could even gasp.
Its head snapped around, motion sharp and precise, abandoning the new presence without thought or warning. Jaws opened—not wide, but exact—
KRRRRAAANG—!!
Metal folded.
The car disappeared into its mouth in an instant, crushed between layered teeth with a sound like a building being compacted. Glass atomized. Steel screamed, then died. Shrapnel spat from between its jaws as it clenched down, the force rippling through its neck and shoulders.
Rian flinched as the shockwave rolled past him, dust blasting into his face.
The creature didn't slow.
It swallowed the wreckage—or ground it into something unrecognizable—and surged forward in the same motion, weight shifting seamlessly into a charge.
The street buckled.
Concrete shattered under its first step.
It wasn't reacting anymore.
It was attacking.
And Rian was still too close.